The Secret Of Happiness Is Relationship

What is the reason for our remaining alive? For what have we come here? Day after day we are being asked about the sense and purpose of our lives. And many of us keep on searching for answers. Will we be able to achieve happiness? That is also a question that forces us every day to find out its answer. What happens if the answer to those queries is quite uncomplicated? What if it is all about ONE thing? Bonding. The secret of happiness is explained perfectly in the stimulating voice of Masami Sato in the excerpt of her book, ONE.

What are we searching for?

There are a host of things that we do in our lives.

However, have we ever wondered why we do what we do? What are we actually looking for?

The world now is full of billions of us coming from different races, countries, religions and beliefs all doing different things. We all look different and act quite differently. We have different interest and attitude from others. We communicate differently often using different languages. We have different desire and feelings.

Still, if there could be ONE thing that we are ALL trying to get, what would that thing be?

While I journeyed all over the world, I asked people a seemingly straightforward question, “What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?”

At first, it looked as if people were in search of different things, as they gave casual answers like “A nice partner”, “Good job”, “My own house”, “A loving family”, “A perfect mate”, “More money”, “Financial Freedom”, “Peace of mind”, or “Meaning of life”. There were other similar answers as well.

I did notice that some of these requirements were of a more earthly nature while others were of a permanent nature. Earthly desires are those that we want because we do not yet have it, or think that we do not yet have it. As against this, permanent desires are not about getting things we do not have. It is about a ‘feeling’ that we yearn for, so that it does not come to an end, whatever we get or accomplish at every moment or our lives.

If we removed all the temporal desires from out list and only looked at the permanent desires, it is so obvious that we simply want to continue feeling positive feelings like excitement, enjoyment, inspiration, motivation, generosity, love, joy etc.-in another way, we want to stay being happy.

Contentment

Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.

This life, that we live, is a mystery. All of us like it in our own different ways. We may also dislike it in different ways. We may wonder about it. We may cherish it. Or we may just accept it in an offhand manner. But what is the ultimate purpose of this life? What if the mystery of our existence is at hand? What if its revelation actually brings us happiness and fulfilment when we come face to face with it?

What if the truth of our life’s purpose, and of its happiness, is as simple as this:

It is all about bonding.

Relationship is everything

Everything is about making relationships. Everything is part of something else. Just a look at our own lives would reveal it to us. Then we will understand the real purpose of our lives.

Why do we do something, ANYTHING at all, in life as human beings?

It is just because we want to connect to others. We make friends to build a relationship. We get married to establish a relationship in a deeper and more permanent manner. We create a family to further strengthen that relationship. We go out to meet more people to connect with them, not only to get benefits out of those relationships, but also to become more connected to the world.

We buy nice clothes and go to a hairdresser to feel more connected to our sense of aesthetics and to our own physical beauty. We eat a variety of food to feel more connected to our sense of taste and smell. We dine out to feel connected to the people we share the meals with. We buy mobile phones and computers to connect with others and the world. We read newspapers and magazines to stay connected to what is happening and what others are doing and feeling. We study and learn to connect with what others know and value.

Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship – a relationship to our very existence – a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.

Bonds are powerful, and yet they are fragile and tender

When we can’t feel the sense of connection in a relationship, we go for separation, divorce, arguments, judgment and resentment. It never feels good to feel disconnected. But we could even feel in love with someone one day and feel totally remote and resentful toward that same person the next day. The feeling can change just by a flick of a finger. And it could be your finger or theirs!

When the bonds are not there

When the bonds are not there, we perceive problems all over. We start seeing disparities and obstacles. We begin passing judgement on others and reproaching them. We blow up, focus on and strengthen those things that we perceive as problems. When that happens, we might even turn all that negativity inwards and cause ourselves hurt and injury. We cannot feel completely happy when we have severed the bonds with even just one thing.

Bonding: the Secret to Happiness

What if we choose to perceive the entire thing in reverse? When we do that we understand this simple truth: we cannot feel despondent when we are in a strong relationship. It is simply not possible!

Try to feel grouchy when we have a good relationship with the people around us and smiling and sharing things completely. Even when we have ‘problems’ in life, we can still smile together and feel delighted when we are bound together in a good relationship. At the same time, it is hard to be happy if we do not have that edifying relationship.

Connection: Our Life

Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.

Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.

Our acts and the choices we make are the manifestations of our need for bonding. We are designed to persistently search ways to bond to each other and to a larger rationale.

Connection and Religion

Some of us have opted to become a part of different religious systems to feel better related to each other. The relationship that we yearn to build could be to God. It could be to those who share the same belief system. When there is the sharing of a similar conviction, there is a stronger relationship within that group. More bestowing on each other takes place among people who feel related to each other.

Relationship and Business

Many people start businesses to feel more connected to themselves by being in charge of their own destiny. But often in the business world, we end up feeling more and more isolated especially when we start perceiving other businesses as competitors, staff as tools and customers as a money stream. But the fundamental point of why we got into business was to feel connected. So, why do we need to create any isolation at all? Maybe in the ideal world, all the businesses worked differently, but together.

Connection and Wars

Some of us even raise arguments or wars to feel some sense of ‘triumph’ or what is a heightened sense of safety and importance. But strangely, this ricochets. The minute we ‘win’ the fight, we are in fact weakening the relationship. We now require more sureness to defend ourselves from being assaulted by others. We thus end up being more unsure and frightened. We cannot take it lightly as it really happens to almost all of us in one form or another.

It may be the differences of opinion we have with people around us. It may be the wrong conclusions we reach at when we decide another person is wrong. When we want to be the only person to triumph, it will not be a victory in the true sense of the word – there would be no bonding. We can only rejoice when we succeed in unison. Then we feel the strong bond.

Despite the myriad ways in which we communicate our wants, everything we do is to fulfil the longing we have to feel and have strong bonds.

The full sense of a bonding is realized only through our heart. We can bond with anybody when we are truly concerned about them and feeling that bond with them. If we are conscious of this, giving life to that required state of mind is really easy, uncomplicated and a pleasure. Then we would actually feel more delight and joy.

Life is just like a game. We experience things and do things in a game but fundamentally, the aim of any game is to enjoy. It is not about doing things or having things. When the game finally ends, the winners are only the ones who enjoyed the game. Not the ones who had more at the end. The results and outcomes of a game we play don’t affect our true life. But if we lost all our friends to play with during a game just because we wanted to be the winner in this round, would it lead us to the real winning game?

It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.

Even if we don’t know when this game actually started and when it would end, we know that it somehow started in the past and it will end someday. When we close the lid of the game box eventually one day, can we simply say, “Wow, it was so much fun. Let’s play again!”

In this play called life, the aim of the play is to ‘bond.’ We can keep bonding until we all merge to become one. It is the one way to perpetually feel bonded to our rationale – the feeling of joy and pleasure. We cannot afford to have the bonds to anything weakened or reject and decide even one thing if we are to reach the state of complete bonding.

Life is as easy as that. There is only ONE secret.

And the secret is to bond.

To become ONE.

To relish.